Page:The Tourist's California by Wood, Ruth Kedzie.djvu/110

 84 THE TOURIST'S CALIFORNIA Spain's interest to these Pandora-lands of the New World. The peninsula which the Gulf of California separates from Mexico, was discovered by Cortez and his followers in 1524 when on a mission for Charles V of Spain. Its topography deceived them into the belief that the pensile strip was an island. Having in mind the fictitious tales of Amadis of Gaul and his son, Esplandian, which all literate Spain had been reading since 1510, it is supposed that one of his men jocularly named this unlovely coast for the fabled " Isle of Cali- fornia," which was placed in the romance " some- where near the Indies," and whose amazons bore arms of unalloyed gold. Centuries later, Cali- fornia, the true land of gold was to be renamed El Dorado for another imaginary country in South America. Some etymologists attribute the origin of the name California to the Indian words kali forno which indicated " sandy coast " or " native land " ; others maintain that it sprang from callda fornax, " hot furnace," or cal y forno, " lime kilns." Still another theorist cites as the root the Arabic- Iberian word, Kalifon, meaning " the realm of a Kalif," or Chief, and therefore " a land of vast treasure." He affirms the letter c to have been erroneously substituted for k and believes the r